pausetowonder

The Odyssey (Fagles translation)

The Odyssey (Fagles translation) -

Read this ages ago and didn't like it. Was I too young? Bad translation? Not sure, but I loved it this time. Beautiful images and descriptions, by turns horrifying, sad, wondrous and suspenseful. He goes from large scale epic adventure to the small pleasures of a warm, cosy bed.

 

Fagles' translation is magnificent -- he's a poet in his own right:

 

"give the boy the name I tell you now. Just as I have come from afar, creating pain for many--men and women across the good green earth--so let his name be Odysseus...the Son of Pain, a name he'll earn in full."

 

"...numbing sorrow had stunned the man to silence..."

 

"as the sun sank and the roads of the world grew dark."

 

"a man whose white bones lie strewn in the rain somewhere,rotting away on land or rolling down the ocean's salty swells."

 

"and the young men brimmed the mixing-bowls with wine."

 

"as the sun set and darkness swept across the earth."

 

"and always dear to our hearts, the feast, the lyre and dance and changes of fresh clothes, our warm baths and beds."

 

"...as they danced across the earth that feeds us all..."

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